


Not the Same

by stardropdream



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: CLAMPkink, F/M, Implied Relationships, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 09:19:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/696723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"... I never hurt you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not the Same

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on the CLAMP kink meme and then reposted to LJ September 1, 2010. 
> 
> The prompt was for Dou/Hima with Hima topping.

Himawari locks the door behind Doumeki as he enters the dorm room. He gives her a sidelong glance, but doesn’t say anything. It’s just as well, because she always offers the answers to the questions he does not ask, should it be a question she doesn’t mind answering: “My hall mates will come in, and they’d never stop talking about it if they saw you sitting on my bed.”  
  
She sighs, but shakes her head when Doumeki goes to stand up off the bed, brow furrowed. She offers him an apologetic smile before heading over towards him, slowly. She sits down beside him.  
  
She looks uneasy, then says, “They already think you’re my boyfriend, since you’re the only one to visit me.”  
  
Doumeki nods, not particularly concerned about other girls’ assumptions. Though, he does not ask about her parents and why they haven’t visited, and Himawari offers no answers. They sit together, as they always do, and as they always do, Himawari asks the questions about Watanuki, about the life far away from where she is—but a life she does not forget. She’s here, so far away, to show them, in a way, that she is okay, that she can live her life. That they don’t have to worry over her, when they have themselves to worry for her. (They worry for her anyway, but the worry remains unspoken, unacknowledged, unforgotten.) She cannot see Watanuki for the majority of the year, but he is never far from her thoughts—and her questions to Doumeki give her shadows of a life she was once more solidly part of. Her questions mostly require yes or no as an answer, for Doumeki’s benefit and for simplicity, he believes. Is he eating well? Is he healthy? Does he still drink a lot? Does he still watch the butterflies in spring the same way?   
  
Of course.   
  
The answers tend to make her sad, but she still asks. He can watch the flickers in her expression she’s spent her entire life trying to smooth away. But no matter how skilled, he’s more skilled at seeing such things. He does not let on that he knows, and she always smiles. He knows when the smile is real. She asks of him, too. Are you well? Is school going well? You’re eating, too? You’re taking care of yourself and him?   
  
She rarely seems satisfied, after her questions, and it seems as if she has more to ask, and never does. Himawari does not ask, and Doumeki does not press her for those questions she’s not ready to ask, for the words that get caught in her throat. After the questions, they sit in silence. She fiddles with her hands to keep from fidgeting and touching, rearranging everything in the room.  
  
She does that every time. He knows her habits by heart now. She’ll clench her hands together. When she’s very nervous, one hand will touch at the back of her neck, slowly drift over her back, feeling at her scars, nails scraping against the thin skin as if to encourage the scars to never heal (they’ll never heal). She’ll thread her fingers through thick, curly hair, try to tug them through and just barely manage to bury her cringe of pain when she tugs too hard. Even if they’re small things (white knuckles, nails against scars, fingers in hair), he does not like to see her cause herself pain.  
  
So, for once, he doesn’t let her. He takes her hands. He holds them and she looks startled for a moment, before she seems to regain control of herself. She smiles, hesitantly, and tries to tug her hands back. His grip only tightens, and he watches her eyes widen again. She looks up at him, and he looks back, not saying anything. He only holds her hands, wants her to calm down—worrying for the idiot will only tear her apart.   
  
She is still looking at him, then down to their hands.   
  
“Sorry,” he says, but does not let go of her hands.  
  
She just shakes her head, and they sit in another stilted silence. She opens her mouth once, before letting it fall shut again. She collects her thoughts—he can see her thinking, summing up the words. He knows to be patient.   
  
“… I never hurt you.”  
  
“No,” he agrees. His aura cancels hers out, he suspects. Yuuko, when she’d been alive, had explained it like that at least. Once. He did not pretend to understand, at the time. He watches her.   
  
She nods, staring for a long moment. He suspects she’ll say something, but no words pass. She stares at her hands before shifting to intertwine their fingers, fascinated by the simple movements. She has not seen her fingers curled with another’s, not since childhood. Her hands are dwarfed by his. Doumeki lets her examine their hands, lets her curl them together. He remains silent. She studies their hands—his, larger and squarer, hers, smaller and more hesitant.   
  
She is fascinated, and does not pull their hands apart. In his visits to her, he has never touched her for so long. When he visits, the touches never linger only because he does not like to make her uncomfortable in a place where he wants her to be comfortable. But now she does not recoil, does not seem terrified—only mystified, curious.   
  
And then there is a flicker in her expression she tries to suppress before she leans up to kiss him. He stiffens, surprised, and pulls away. She looks up at him, stricken, eyes widened. He hesitates, leans forward just slightly. Himawari’s eyes drift shut and her hold on his hands tightens, and she tries to kiss him again when he does not pull away. Her lips brush his. This time, he pulls away completely.  
  
“Wait.”  
  
She freezes, staring at him still. She looks scared, unsure. She does not release his hands but she does looks away. “I’m sorry…” She holds their hands tighter still. “I can’t… you don’t get hurt. But I can’t even touch Watanuki-kun.”  
  
He frowns. “You can. If you want.”  
  
“I do want to,” she says, calmly save for the smallest hint of a waver in her words. He only hears it because he’s looking for it, knows how to decipher her. “Bu I can’t. I don’t want him to hurt even more.”  
  
Doumeki does not say anything, though he wants to. There are so many things he wants to say, and will not. So he just frowns at her, but does not pull away as Himawari leans in closer.  
  
“I want to touch him.”  
  
Doumeki bites his tongue. She studies his face, and he suspects that as easily as he can read her, she can read him in turn. Her eyes do not flicker away, and he feels completely bare under her gaze. It’s not an unpleasant thought, because though there are things he will not say, there is also nothing that he feels he needs to hide.   
  
They are completely alone. The distant sounds of the dormitory doesn’t seem to infiltrate the silence in the dorm room, Himawari staring at Doumeki, and him calmly returning the gaze. Then, slowly, Himawari retreats. But only a little. Her fingers uncurl. Himawari releases his hands only to cup his face. The palms press against his cheeks—it’s a foreign feeling, something he can’t remember happening recently at all. Himawari’s hands are soft, gentle, unsure. They don’t stroke, they don’t clench—they just lay against his skin, a simple layer against layer. She stays quiet for a long moment, tracing his features with her eyes.   
  
“But if I touch you,” she whispers. “Nothing bad will happen—you won’t bleed. You won’t scar.”  
  
He doesn’t move. Unspoken words flicker in his eyes, and there’s a moment when it looks as if the two will pull away from each other, repel like two magnets turned on the wrong ends. But the moment passes, and she shifts slightly towards him.  
  
She swallows thickly. “You won’t run away. Will you?”  
  
“No,” he says, “Why would I?”  
  
Before, she’d been still and silent and unsure, ready to dart away at a moment’s notice. Now… She seems to come to life at his words, her mouth quirking into an uneasy smile. She shifts, as the wind does through a burnt-out tree—deceptively sturdy when the cinders are waiting to collapse to the ground. “There are a lot of reasons why you should run. If you’re smart, Doumeki-kun.”  
  
“Idiot,” he says. He closes his eyes for a moment before saying, lifting his hand to her, “come here.”   
  
She needs no further invitation and goes to him, cradling his head as she slants her mouth against his, kissing him soundly. He doesn’t pull away, does not discourage her. Her lips are soft, her body even softer as she presses up against him. Her thumbs stroke his face as she pulls away for air, her lips parted and cheeks pink.  
  
“It’s okay?” she asks, breathless.  
  
“You can touch me,” he says.  
  
Himawari nods, and shifts closer still, climbing into his lap. He doesn’t expect it, eyes widening slightly. She straddles him with the same uneasy smile.  
  
“You can touch me, too,” she says as she leans into him, her breath hot against his mouth, “please.”  
  
He wants to touch her. And now he has the permission, but he hesitates. His hands twitch, move over her waist to her hips. She deepens their kiss, rolling her hips just slightly, and smiling further when his back stiffens up. Her fingers move away from his face, trail down to thumb open the buttons of his shirt, exposing skin moment by moment. He does not know how this moment has come to this, but he does not run away from it. Himawari is beautiful, and his body ignites when she touches him. In the rest of his life, it is something that he somehow lacks—  
  
He doesn’t touch anyone, either. And now her hands map his skin, the curve of his muscles, the outline of his body.   
  
“It’s really okay?” she asks again as she kisses at his lower lip.  
  
He hesitates, just a moment—  
  
To stop or to continue. Her fingers are on the buttons of his shirt, thumbing open the last one. He does not know why he does. But, his response is to shrug off his shirt and reach for the buttons of her shirt. She leans closer, kisses at his jaw as he pulls her shirt off her shoulders. He smoothes the fabric away from her, and his hands curl over her shoulders, to push down over her back. She pulls away before he can touch her back, however, smiling at him as if the move was not achingly obvious. The smile is just a bit tense, and she angles her a body in a way where his hands stray to her hips instead of her back—away from her scars. She looks down, away from him, and she removes her skirt, shifting without leaving his lap, tossing it to the ground. She picks up their shirts from the bed and lets them fall to the ground as well.   
  
She’s in her underwear and all he can do is stare. He’s never been in a situation like this before, and he knows for certain that neither has she. His hands fumble, just slightly, from inexperience, unsure where to touch, unsure what she’d like. She bites her lip in a way that’s too endearing, her brow furrowed slightly in determination to get it right, her heart thundering from insecurity. If only there was a way he could reassure her, but the words are gummied to his throat and he does not know what to do.   
  
They freeze as footsteps pass outside door, but they pass away as a door down the hall unlocks. Himawari’s eyes stay on the door, but he’s watching her, watching the elegant curve of her neck, the way her mouth goes slack as she holds her breath. He wants to touch her, but he waits until she turns her attention back to him, laughing a bit nervously.   
  
“We’ll have to be quiet now,” she says, then giggles a little more, and he watches the tension fall from her shoulders, just slightly, “not that it’s hard for Doumeki-kun.”   
  
Doumeki doesn’t say anything, but he does grunt as Himawari rolls her hips again. Her body angles against his, sliding up to his as if made to fit there.   
  
“I wonder,” she says, biting her lip, “if there’s a way to make Doumeki-kun not quiet.”  
  
He opens his mouth but no words pass because Himawari quickly pulls on his trousers, stripping him naked. He sucks in a sharp breath as Himawari’s hands run down his chest. Her touch is still hesitant, as if half-expecting Doumeki to pull away, to tell her to stop. There’s no way he’ll tell her to stop when she’s almost naked on top of him.   
  
“Touch me, too?” she reminds as she mouths against his ear. He grunts and turns his head, kissing her and fisting his hand in her hair, his other hand running up her stomach. She hums against his mouth, swiveling her hips against his lap until he plumps up against her, hard, his body tensing. She pushes against him slightly and he falls back against the bed, head narrowly missing the wall—not that he would notice, with Himawari pressed up against him and kissing him. He deepens the kiss, content just to kiss her for now, until she continues the rolling of her body achingly against him. Her movements are jerky, unsure, but his response (no matter how quiet) is enough to encourage her to keep going.   
  
She doesn’t stop until he is completely hard, then she pulls away. He tries to follow her, sitting up. But she just smiles. She stands, biting her lip. He looks up at her, hands on her hips now. She looks down at him a moment before closing her eyes, lifting her hands to clump her hair together and push it back over her shoulders. To make sure her back is covered. Her skin is smooth.   
  
“If it stops being okay…” she says, hesitating, “just say so.”  
  
He watches her, and shakes his head. “It’s okay.”   
  
She nods, and her smile becomes a touch happier, less uncertain. She swallows, and he watches her throat. Then she shifts, lifting her hands behind her back, groping around for the strap of her bra. He grows very still. She unhooks her bar, lets the fabric fall away.  
  
He swallows thickly as she approaches, thumbs hooked in the band of her underwear. Murmuring his name, she tugs them down and steps out of the underwear, kicking it towards her discarded skirt. He does not hide his staring. Naked now, she shifts uneasily before turning away. Her hair blocks away most of her from view as she moves her legs on either side of his legs, grasps his cock, and begins to lower herself onto him, guiding him. She is warm and soft and he moans low in his throat, hold on her hips tightening. She moves with unsteady movements, and her body tenses up. She presses back against him, her hair serving as a buffer between their skin. He cannot touch her back like this, and he suspects she chose the position purposefully. He swallows again, rests his chin on her shoulder as his hands slide up her quivering belly and cup her heaving breasts. They’re large and heavy in his hands, and he holds them in a silent state of shock, simply holding them without movement or squeezing.   
  
Her breathing is ragged as she takes in the dusty tip of his cock into her, tensing up as she adjusts to his size and swell. He glances up at her expression, but she turns her face away from him, so that he can only trace the line of her jaw and the seashell curve of her ear.   
  
She pants out his name again as she continues to take him into her tight heat, her hips bucking, her legs flexing as she continues to lower herself onto him, balancing on his lap, feet off the ground. It takes a while, some wiggling and tensing, and Doumeki’s thumb pressing against her clit, before she can take him in up to his root without her face twisting in pain and her body tensed in something that was not pleasure, but enveloping, clenching fear.  
  
They stay very still, as Himawari adjusts to his presence, adjusts the reality that he was not running away, that he was in her, around her, and holding her. He cradles her, and his thumbs flick at her nipples hesitantly, before he palms her breasts. He can feel her heart thundering against her ribcage and he does not know how to quell her fears. He leans his head, just slightly, and kisses at her neck.   
  
She does relax, only a little, though. Her body sinks against him, and the vice-like grip on his cock loosens just slightly. Experimentally, she shifts her hips, lifting herself up and then pushing back down. He chokes back a gasp. She looks down, at their legs curled together, at where, if she tips her head just slightly, she can see where his cock enters her. She bites her lip and shifts again, and this time they both gasp as she hits just the right angle. She moves slowly, setting the pace with a pace that was almost painful in its friction and slowness. Her head tips back, resting against his shoulder as she shifts her body up and down along the length of his cock.   
  
Her back presses against his chest, and through her hair he can just make out the curvature of her scars. It’s the only thing about her that is not soft and rounded—while her voice is soft and gentle, her body tender to his touch, it is the scars that are sharp and jagged. There is nothing gentle about the curvature screaming down her back.   
  
He wants to touch her more. The distance between them is vast, despite being inside her, despite her angling her body in a way to cause him only pleasure. There was a moment, when he held her in his arms, that he felt almost at peace. But he could not see her face, and she was avoiding him, even now—even now, when touching her, she was pulling away from human connection. He closed his eyes, thrust up weakly into her without really realizing, and listening to her soft sounds. He comes to his decision then. He squeezes her breasts and then pulls her off him. She tenses up, and he watches the way her shoulders go rigid. When she turns to him, it is in fear—fear that he will push her away, that he will leave her, that he regrets touching her. He won’t run away, though. He has no intention of letting her run away, either.   
  
When she turns to him, there is fear in her eyes. Before she can take a step back, before she can run away, he grabs her hips and pulls her back to him, facing him now. The understanding dawns on her face and she bites her lip. She looks as if she will run away again, knowing his intentions, but he won’t let her. He pulls her over him. She straddles his legs again and with more guidance, he pushes back into her. He’s facing her now. She closes her eyes, biting her lip. It takes a while, but she seems to grow more comfortable, moving against him again, tilting her head back.   
  
She rocks against him, breathing harshly against his ear, her back arching. She pumps herself up and down along his cock. He swallows thickly, looking up at her. He leans in, sucking on a nipple and looking up at her. She does not meet his eyes, but she gasps quietly, her face flushing from pleasure. Her movements are frenzied, without a proper beat, but it’s perfect and she’s perfect. He presses his tongue over the swells of her breasts, alternating between the two, keeping his eyes up on her in case her eyes do chance to look downwards. She whispers his name as she rocks, her body writhing.   
  
He shivers at the sound of her name and grunts, just slightly, and lifts his hands from her hips. His hand tangles in her hair, pushes it from her back so his free hand runs along the lengths of her scars. She freezes, tensing up. He looks up at her, where his mouth glances along the curve of her breasts and the arch of her collarbone. She tilts her head, looking down at him with a stricken expression. But she does not pull back. He looks at her.  
  
“You’re beautiful,” he says, before he can stop himself, but he does not regret saying it.   
  
He does not regret, because her mouth opens and no words come out, and for half a moment it looks as if she will cry. She regains control of herself, as she always does, and offers him a slightly wavering smile. His hand brushes along the scars, softly, watching the way her face completely disarms as he touches her. It’s somehow far more intimate than anything else he’s done with her that afternoon. Each finger splays across the angry red flesh, following its jagged path with gentle reverence.   
  
He presses his palm against the center of her back, and her body seems to hum against her. His other hand busies brushing her hair from her face, sliding down her neck. She closes her eyes and tilts her head, leaning down to kiss him. He kisses her back and lets her hands touch him, rove over his skin before settling on the back of his neck. She resumes her pace, pumping herself up and down against him. She moans, throwing her head back as his fingers trace her back and his cock pushes in and out of her tight body.  
  
They continue in this way until they both find their release, Doumeki before Himawari. Once their heartbeats come back to a normal rate, she smiles and kisses him again. The smile seems almost easier now, and her face is completely unguarded, for that blissful moment between past and present.   
  
“Thank you.” Her words are soft, meaningful.   
  
He feels he should be the one to say it—feels there’s a lot to say.  
  
But he just holds her close instead, and traces her scars.


End file.
